There are three problems in Diplomacy. What you think about a problem. What you should do about it. And what you can do about it.

So what the British Government think about the continuing Russian official pressure on the British Council is clear enough. But some commentators are saying that what they should – and can – do about it is perhaps another matter. We’ll see.

This is one reason why wise diplomatists keep the language they use in public studiously calm. If someone is causing you a problem, do not appear rattled. For two reasons:

  • You do not want the other side to think they are making progress by rattling you (and NB making you come across as rattled and therefore some sort of plaything they can manipulate at will in fact may be part of why they have caused the row in the first place. Mind games and all that)
  • plus you may appear even weaker if there is a perceptible gap between your evident agitation and what you can do to make the other side back off or change course

Putting it another way, if someone is hurting you a tried and proven way to make them stop is to find a way to hurt them back (ideally a notch more than they are hurting you). This is the stuff of B-movie cliches, but none the less true for that.

Gangster A: "You can’t do this to me!" 

Ganster B: (slowly and deliberately blowing smoke in Gangster A’s eyes) "Whatcha gonna do about it, punk?"

Or as Lenin famously put it, "Who whom?" (Kto kogo?)